On our last excursion together, to Wisconsin's fair Lodi, Mom bought me a CD. It was in this charming and eclectic home shop called Three Bats in the Belfry. Every occasion when she and I visited the establishment, I heard this beautiful music. It reminded me of childhood and of whimsy. I felt myself floating around the quaint store, a renovated church with myriad glass trinkets gleaming in the morning sun.

I had observed the jewel case of the streaming melodies many a time, never locating the album within the store. Angelic sounds from the piano and the lute swirled about my ears for weeks. The fifteenth track sent me back to the times when I sat in my mother's arms and felt like the luckiest girl in the whole world. I'd often poke around Three Bats in the Belfry longer than necessary just to catch that fifteenth track: Simple Gifts. It has long been one of my mother's favorite songs, and I have heard it often in her gentle soprano:

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

At long last, Mom unearthed the gem—the very morning I left, no less...

I have been listening to it incessantly. Miles has been a good sport, and sometimes even pretends to see the glitter, fair maidens, white knights, and swirling magic of my fairy tale upbringing that I am gripping so tightly.